Items tagged with office 365

Computer users are living in a digital world where their data is increasingly coming under attack. While governments and even news organizations are being threatened by hackers from around the global, John and Jane Smith also have to deal with increasing levels of malware and ransomware everywhere they turn. To help combat these security threats, Microsoft is beefing up security in some if its most popular software products: Windows 10 and Office 365. In an effort to strangle phishing emails, 90 percent of which hijack your browser to launch an attack, Microsoft has introduced Windows Defender...Read more...

Word is ubiquitous these days (as are the rest of its Office app counterparts), which is possible thanks to decades of development and advancement by Microsoft. But despite the fact that Word may have a few grey whiskers jutting from its chinny chin chin, this old dog is definitely up for learning some new tricks. And today, Microsoft has revealed that its machine learning prowess has resulted in a new feature that will make it easier for researchers to search for information without impeding their workflow. If you’re writing a research paper, Microsoft’s new Researcher tool for Office 365 brings...Read more...

If you're an iOS user who's been dying to try out a new on-screen keyboard, Microsoft has a new one that's well worth testing. Called "Hub Keyboard", Microsoft aims to make the simple on-screen keyboard a lot more powerful, and intuitive. If you're an Office 365 user, the app's usefulness can greatly improve your workflow. Do you hate having to switch apps just to complete routine tasks, such as pulling in a URL or pasting a block of text you recently copied? Hub Keyboard is all about shortening the amount of time it takes to conduct such tasks, even inserting a period. With this solution, simply...Read more...

If you’re the owner of a new Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XL Windows 10 Mobile smartphone, Microsoft is just about to make your day a little bit brighter. The company announced that it will soon be giving customers a free one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal as a gift for purchasing its latest flagship smartphones. In case you were wondering, the Office 365 Personal subscription is worth $70, so this is generous offer from Microsoft. To take advantage of the free subscription, you will have to navigate to the Lumia Offers app on your smartphone, and choose the “1-year Office 365” selection from...Read more...

Microsoft has rolled out a new preview build of Office 2016 for Windows PCs (Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10). This is just the second preview build of Office 2016; the first was released in March and was specifically aimed at developers and IT Pros. Today’s release targets everyone, including general consumers. For Office 365 subscribers that want to test out Office 2016, you can simply head over to the Office My Account page, click on “Language and install options” and next click “Additional install options” after which you will see a drop-down menu to install either there 32-bit or 64-bit version...Read more...

First announced late last fall, Microsoft's video component for Office 365 is now available worldwide to its enterprise customers. Microsoft's goal here is to allow companies to relay information via video throughout the organization using apps and an interface they're familiar with. One key advantage is that companies can get off of YouTube, with its insecure "Unlisted" option. Office 365 Video will work on any device that supports HTML5, and at the moment, there's just a single app available so far, for the iPhone. On Android? Just load up an HTML5-equipped browser, and the service should work...Read more...

American companies tend to reserve their best promotional offers for their U.S.-based customers, and if they’re lucky, to our northern neighbors in Canada. Microsoft has offered Office 365 free to students in the U.S. since September 2014. Microsoft announced this week that millions of students and teachers around the world will now be eligible to sign up to receive Office 365 for free — there’s a rather extensive list of supported countries and languages that you can view here. There’s just one catch, however, and it’s a pretty big one. Schools first need to buy Office 365 subscriptions for faculty...Read more...

Microsoft really wants to get people hooked on its OneDrive cloud storage service. The company already provides unlimited OneDrive storage with an Office 365 subscription, but earlier this month it offered a perk to entice users that haven’t already made the plunge by offering 100GB of storage available for free (for two years we might add) just by signing up for Bing Rewards. Today, Microsoft is offering up another 100GB of free storage for a year if you’re an existing Dropbox user. The steps are pretty simple: Go to Microsoft’s promotion page and clock “Verify and get my storage”Sign in to your...Read more...

Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has shown a surprising amount of “love” for its competitors. It has provided high-functioning Office apps to iOS and Android users well ahead of solutions for its own Windows Phone platform. It has even partnered with Dropbox, which goes head-to-head with Microsoft’s own OneDrive online cloud storage solution. Today, Microsoft has even more love to share, as it is taking steps to offer more robust cloud storage integration into its Office apps. That starts today with the addition of updated iOS Office apps that allow users to “open, edit and save documents from...Read more...

The last time we visited Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage service, Microsoft gave all Office 365 subscribers unlimited storage. That’s definitely a nice perk for Microsoft’s Office suite that by itself costs $10 per month (or $100 per year). While that feature addition was aimed specifically at Office 365 users, Microsoft is running a new promotion aimed at that those who haven’t signed up for Office 365 or simply don’t need (or want) the productivity suite. This time around, Microsoft is giving away 100GB of free OneDrive storage space free for two years. While the service itself is free, there...Read more...

There's a weird issue affecting some Office 365 and OneDrive users, myself included, but what's even worse is the way it's being handled by Microsoft's online support system. I'll get to that in a moment, but first let's discuss the problem at hand, which is that some users recently ran into a problem getting Word 97-2007 Document files (*.doc) to upload to OneDrive. I first encountered the issue last week, and after successfully syncing many Word 97-2007 Document files for months prior, I suddenly encountered an error message that prevented me from uploading my files to OneDrive. "SAVE AGAIN ...Read more...

Windows Phone has captured roughly 2.5 percent of the global smartphone market, and its fortunes don’t exactly look promising in the face of cutthroat competition from the likes of Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. Considering that Microsoft has a darling property in its portfolio like Office, one would expect that the folks in Redmond would devote its time and resources to ensuring that the productivity suite shined the brightest on Windows Phone. However, as we’ve seen in the past few months, Microsoft has devoted the majority of its resources into making Office look and function better on iOS...Read more...

Well, that didn’t take long. In early November, Microsoft rolled out its new “Work & Play Bundle” that combines a year’s worth of Office 365 Home, Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Music Pass, and Skype Unlimited World + WiFi. Microsoft priced the bundle at $199, which at the time seemed like a sweet deal. Today, however, Microsoft is making the deal even sweeter thanks to a $50 price cut to $149 for the holidays. Purchased separately, here’s the breakdown of the costs for each service: Xbox Live Gold: $59.99 Office 365 Home: $99.99 Xbox Music Pass: $119.88 Skype Unlimited World + WiFi: $167.88 So...Read more...

Skype has been getting some love from Microsoft in recent weeks. On the consumer side, Microsoft introduced Skype Qik, a short video messaging service that’s bound to give SnapChat headaches. Today, Microsoft has news for business users: Lync is becoming Skype for Business in 2015. Microsoft says there will be more to the move than a name change. Lync, which is Microsoft’s messaging tool for corporate customers, will be undergoing a major interface change that will see many of Skype's features brought onboard. Although the launch isn’t until next year, Microsoft already has screenshots...Read more...